Dear Readers, I have been smoking for 37 years and this is my third serious attempt and it will be the final one. I will never smoke again, ever. I know this because I will not fall into the traps which caused me to start again. Always an excuse, the fact that I felt amazing, what could one cigarette do, I would just have one, etc... Once you quit, its forever, you can never have one again. I suffer from asthma and recently had trouble breathing, especially at night, coughing and wheezing was keeping me awake. A month ago, I woke up and thought to myself, if I don't stop and listen to my body, this smoking will kill me. I ordered a high-end running machine, and started a beginners training. Its been over three weeks now. At first I could hardly breathe and now I run every day, fragmented walk and run, building it up. I am so proud that I can actually run for 2 x 15 minutes with a 2 minute walk in between and am progressing daily. It has kept my weight off, and I am feeling fitter than ever before. I sleep really well, my skin looks great. I still think of smoking often, but still have acid-reflux sometimes, which will go, but is there to keep me in check... our bodies are amazing and forgiving, I have learnt to listen and trust it. Learn to live and quit

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My story with tobacco finally looks like a success story and the app 'Stop-Tobacco' was really decisive in that success. I started smoking around the age of 15 years old. At first, I never thought I could be addicted to it. I would only smoked sporadically without ever buying my own cigarettes. But by the age of 20 I was smoking every day around 10 cigarettes a day and any attempt to quit was quickly followed by a relapse. I did manage to reduce the number of cigarettes I was smoking at times (especially between 24 and 26 years old) but I never completely gave up smoking altogether. In the last two years, I had become really upset about my smoking habits, for various reasons: my teeth were becoming BROWN, the number of cigarettes I was smoking was increasing (I started chain smoking), but the idea to quit seemed more and more difficult. And all of a sudden things worked out! Here is what I have done. 1. First, I told a few relatives I was quitting NOW, so that it pressured me to keep up with my commitment 2. Second, I downloaded the stop tobacco app and read it every day, several times a day. 3. Third, I used tobacco replacement therapy after a month (the first month I did it without but I gained weight; as soon as I introduced the replacement therapy, I stopped eating compulsively) 4. Fourth, I didn't chose a holiday period to quit, as I would usually do, but a normal work time. I think it's best to stop when it seems most difficult. 5. Fifth, I was not drinking alcohol during this time. Drinking would have favoured a relapse. And to my surprise, it worked out! I can proudly say that it has been 297 days. I have gained 34 days of life and 1888 euros. Now every time I see someone smoking my brain produces some kind of red signal: "Danger! Danger!" What used to be my best friend has become my ultimate enemy. I want to warmly thank the designers of the app. I couldn't be more grateful.

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I wrote a testimony for this site in 2003, when I was 42 years old and struggling to quit smoking. I quit on and off in the years following, and when I was 50, learned that I had cancer which had started in my airway and grown into my left lung. Although not technically a "lung cancer", I'm sure all those years of smoking didn't help. Also breathing in hair dye, because I was a hairstylist. I had to have my left lung removed, which is major surgery. Luckily I survived. I have never smoked again. I sometimes wistfully think about the (psychological) relaxing effect of smoking a cigarette, but I know it's not real, and all the pain and suffering it causes is not worth it. I'm 60 now and living my best life. But having one lung is a constant reminder of my poor choices in regards to smoking.

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I quit smoking in my 30s and went into major depression. I started smoking again and the depression went away after a year. I quit smoking again 30 years ago and got major depression again. I have never smoked again, but the major depression has never gone away. I take antidepressants. How can I get my brain chemicals going again without antidepressants? Or nicotine?

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I started smoking in my teens. I have consistently smoked 3/4 of a pack a day for at least 20 years. The last 10 years I have had a chronic cough and some wheezing. I seriously tried to quit about 3 times. I never made it past a month without falling for the old "I can have just ONE, I've been so GOOD" bullshit. This time I am using patches and gum. I've been "ex-smoker" for 5 weeks now. The patches have made a big difference. Other than missing my smokes a couple times a day, I am doing just fine. I think about it less every day. I know this time that I cannot ever have even ONE cigarette. The thought depresses me but I am committed. I do not want to die young from a smoking related illness. I do not want my (nonsmoking) husband to have to watch me die, or help me lug around an oxygen tank. I started a fitness regime about a year ago, and I think that being physically fit has also helped me this time around. Its nice to breathe easier during workouts. I also enjoy laying next to my husband without worrying about wheezing or coughing. I think the time was finally right for me to quit. Still, it is the hardest thing I have ever done.

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Hello everyone! I would like to share my uplifting story with all those who are still struggling to stop smoking for good. It's now 5 months since I last touched a cigarette, and it wasn't at all easy to quit! For about a month, I really struggled with anxiety and obsessive cravings. Then, after the second month, everything fell into place! No more urgent need to smoke, just a little desire (more like a thought) from time to time. I can hardly believe it myself and yet it's true. For a month now, my life has been changing. I feel that I am not at all the same. I was scared that my personality would change: I thought that quitting smoking would make me less interesting and shyer, that I would be less fun. And in fact, to my great surprise, the opposite is true! I am much more open to other people, less stressed, and very confident in myself and about the future. As well as the classic health benefits that come with quitting, for some weeks now I have felt an urgent need to put my whole life in order!! I've learned that I am a strong and motivated person who is full of life. It's as if I must appreciate every second of my new life and have learned how to put my worries into perspective. After having put up with my bad moods before, my friends and family now appreciate my enthusiasm and good humor! Long live non- smokers!!

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I smoked my first cigarette when I was 17 and my last on 14 April 2013 , not counting 18 months of not smoking when I was 30 years old. A whole life with tobacco - it was my oldest friend. I quickly smoked a packet a day and at the end of my time as a smoker I was on 2 and a half or even 3 packets a day. Strangely, I found it harder to quit when I was 30 than I did this time. Back then I had made a bet with myself: You're going to quit, you're going to show everyone that you can. A year and a half later I relapsed, which is not surprising because I'd already won my bet, I'd successfully quit, and the smell of a cigarette that a friend lit in front of me was so tempting Anyway, this time it took me a year and a half to decide to quit, to prepare myself, to convince myself that I could do it, however hard it might be. And then one day when I was surfing the Web I came across Stop-tabac.ch by chance and I've been on it ever since. My decision was made and it was time to start acting, and it is Stop-tabac that has helped me, and all the members of the team who have helped me patiently and calmly, picking me up whenever I felt down. As much as I wanted to quit smoking, I didn't want those around me to suffer because of it, and I didn't want to put on weight. I therefore used Zyban in the way prescribed by stop-tabac and in the following months I took Prozac to get over the difficult moments and avoid testing my resolve. To control my weight, I drank sparkling water every time I felt the need to raise something to my lips. I drank it directly from the bottle like a baby, and sometimes drank 3 liters in a day, but it worked. So, now I'm 64 and rediscovering tastes and smells that I knew in my childhood and that I had lost. I've also got my breath back so I run, I walk, I swim, I live. The smokers around me don't bother me now either. In fact, when I see someone smoking, especially a woman, I think it looks very unsightly, very ugly. I feel so strongly that it's a drug that I want to tell them, please stop destroying yourself. But you can't make other people happy, can you?

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The month of May is coming the beautiful month of May. Last year I said to myself I'm going to quit. I can stop whenever I want, anyway, so I'm going to stop now. 2 packets a day, the smell, the smog, as I called it.the cough in the morning, the hoarse voice, and often the fear of straining something or coughing my lungs out! So when May came along with the challenge of 31 days of not smoking (in Switzerland) I thought to myself, why not? Suddenly people were saying chicken, you don't dare! and you won't last 3 days all around me. This lack of faith in me annoyed me. Yes, I'll admit it, I stopped smoking to shut my colleagues up and leave them to get on with their gossiping behind my back! That was 16 May 2015 Twelve months later, they've stopped offering me cigarettes in the morning with a wicked smile, and one member of their clan has even joined me over on this side of the fence. It was the first time that I'd tried to quit smoking. I was 42, and I'd smoked since I was 16, so you can do the maths. At first, I played the hard woman the smell didn't bother me in the slightestand then I decided to stop lying to myself! It stinks, and now I can't stand those who make the air around me smell disgusting, and make all my moments smell and taste disgusting. I suppose I've become a bit intolerant. Now, I make people smoke outside when they come to mine, and if I'm forced to go somewhere where people are smoking, I wash my clothes as soon as I get home. Apart from bringing out this pretty crazy side to me, quitting smoking has also given me a fantastic trip to London. I honestly put the price of two packets of cigarettes in a piggy bank, that's 11.60 francs a day. I split the pig open in February, went on the trip, and I still didn't spend all the money I'd saved! And the best thing is that no longer smoking has brought me back the taste of my meals, the smell of flowers, my breath when I go on long walksmy dogs thank me every day. I haven't put on an ounce because I didn't replace my cigarettes with food. *I am already quite round, so I was very strict with myself about this :o).* I can only encourage those who read this to go for it and to ignore all those friends who say you won't be able to do it. They say that because THEY wouldn't be able to do it. Nobody believed in me on 16 May last year. Nobody! (I didn't even believe in myself!) I am proud of myself today, and I'd like to thank everyone at Stop-Tabac, where I was able to find everything I needed to be successful. I'll never be a non-smoker, I will always be an ex-smoker, a bit like alcoholics who no longer touch a drop. To quit using a drug is to carry on living, and it's wonderful!

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Hello! My name is Maud and I wrote my personal experience on this site just under a year ago, when I quit smoking. It will be a year in a few more days and I'm proud, extremely proud. I'm writing again today to show you that yes, it is possible. A year ago I smoked a packet of cigarettes a day. I no longer touch cigarettes and it's not torture, it's a joy. Believe in it, try it, and try it again. And say stuff it to the people who don't believe in you. Find your own motivations, write them down, at home, at work, in the car (thank goodness for Post-Its!). I've had a pretty bad year, to be honest I've cried, I've lost sleep, I've ballooned in weight (gained 22 pounds!), I had pimples all summerbut I came through it all. I gave myself a year to evacuate cigarettes. Here's the proof of it. *I cried for hours on end for no apparent reason. My best friends tried to help and ended up laughing at me, while I was still crying! But it passed. Now I've got my spark back! *I lost sleep. Yes, and that still happens from time to time. I look at the positives hot milk before bed, relaxing infusions, soft music, baths with candles and essential oils. My little girl loves it. So do I. Trying to cure your insomnia is not so bad after all! *My weight has ballooned. Ah yes, I must admit that that is really unpleasant. But I had accepted it might happen and I think that it has really contributed to my success in quitting. A year of being chubby for a healthier life. I'll take it. If I start attacking the green beans instead of the biscuit tin, the scales will soon start smiling again. And with them, my clothes. And as for me, I'm not even thinking about it! *I broke out in pimples in the summer. That, girls (and boys) is the time to go to a beautician for a bit of facial pampering. Take some time for yourself, look after yourselfwhat could be better? I'm now starting my new, healthy life as an ex-smoker. My two best friends have just quit, too. They are sick of having to go outside to smoke when we're all inside! If they are reading this, I'd like them to know that I believe in them. Finally, if I've got enough willpower to quit smoking, I've got enough willpower to achieve many, many things, haven't I? Woohoo!"

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I lit my first cigarette at a holiday camp when I was 11 or 12. But I consider that I didn't really become part of the smoking clan until I was 15, when I was smoking a good 20 cigs per day. That was fine and we were all much less aware of the harm that smoking could do. My father died age 59 of cardiovascular problems due in large part to cigarettes. My mother stopped smoking then but it didn't stop cancer of the vocal cords catching her and then, 15 years later, cancer of the larynx. As for me, I carried on smoking a packet a day minimum. Quitting was out of the question and I never even tried once in nearly 30 years (except during my pregnancies, when I was lucky enough to be repelled by the smell of cigarette smoke). However, two summers ago, we went to Scotland on a family holiday, and stayed in the middle of nowhere with only sheep for company. It was here, among all that nature, that my husband and I decided to smoke our last cigarette. The fact that we were away from our normal lives for three weeks was really essential. In the first few days I would pace up and down like a bear in a cage, especially in the evenings at the time when, a few days earlier, I smoked the best cigarettes. But I held out. I went walking down the empty roads or cried in the fields and I came back feeling calm. The hardest thing was coming home to our old routine and the little habits we'd forgotten. I discovered a little trick that helped me a lot instead of settling down on the sofa at the end of the day, I'd take myself off to bed with a good book. I'd never smoked in my bedroom so the call of cigarettes wasn't as strong there. Now there's nothing much other than driving and the odd bit of road rage that make me think of cigarettes. I used to smoke a crazy number of cigarettes in my car. Two things stop me from going back to cigarettes: the memory of my dependency and the feeling of panic I used to get when I saw that my packet was nearly empty. I used to have to get in the car and drive as long as it took to find somewhere to buy cigarettes. Sunday was an awful day for that. Whenever I see people queuing on Sundays and bank holidays at the only kiosk that's open in the area, I tell myself I had a lucky escape. Another thing that plays in my favor is the awful smell that surrounds smokers and the image that they project. I used to be someone who drove around with a cigarette in her mouth, one of those people who lights up in the street, and the smell of stale tobacco clung to me despite my best efforts. Now I think people who walk around with a fag in their mouth look awful and it's really unpleasant when wafts of tobacco smoke reach my nostrils when a smoker says hello, even if they've already stubbed out their cigarette. All is not rosy in their world. I think I'm more or less cured, but I've put on a lot of weight while compensating, especially at the wheel (packets of sweets, little detours to the bakery). I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel where that's concerned but it will have taken two years (6 August) to stabilise and start getting back to normal. My kids help me to stay off cigarettes I think they would resent me and be very disappointed if they caught me smoking again. Getting some outside help might have stopped me gaining 22 pounds but however you go about it, quitting is really worth it.

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Here I am, face to face with reality, face to face with my stupidity. Here I am, and I don't understand. The worst thing that cigarettes contain is Addiction, as that takes away your free will, your determination and even a part of your personality, which is burned away without you realising it in those puffs of pleasure! The cigarette is the partner of all the difficult moments that will always be there. The need for a cigarette is deeply embedded in our lungs when life gets us down, when stress overwhelms us, when boredom overcomes us, when our senses are heightened, when fear strikes us, when our cravings become intolerable, when the force of habit is too strong This loyal friend could be there until our dying moments, until our last gasp on our death bed. This family member, this companion, fills our brain with so much smoke that we can no longer do anything without it we are afraid of living without it instead of with it. Here I am, face to face with myself, face to face with the distressing reality, but I am full of hope and I say NO to this poisonous partnership.

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It's now 6 months since I stopped smoking. I wore patches for the first 2 months so I had time to change my habits without missing the nicotine. After that, I stopped using the patches and apart from feeling a bit on edge from time to time, everything went really well. To be honest, my last few years of smoking were completely devoid of pleasure and full of guilt, and I realize now that it was harder to smoke than it was to quit! Let's stop talking about how hard it is to stop smoking - all that does is scare smokers and put them off trying to quit. Personally, I stopped smoking without any great effort, without gaining more than 4 pounds, and without making myself into a martyr. The desire to smoke is like a beast in your belly that demands feeding It is not really you it got introduced into you and can leave again. The sooner you stop feeding it, the sooner it disappears. Cutting down on cigarettes just keeps the beast alive. I would like my personal experience to reassure smokers who want to quit that it is not so difficult. Since I stopped smoking, I enjoy my life a lot more. I no longer have to live with the guilt I felt in relation to my children, my health and my wallet. I'm finally at peace with myself. That really makes it worth giving up for good. Forget whatever people have told you, and make quitting work for you. You'll soon see that it's much easier than you thought!

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That's it, I've quit. After 8 years of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, here I am going through a personal revolution. It's crazy. I can hardly believe it. I, who couldn't bear the thought of not smoking the after-dinner cigarette, the start- of-the-night cigarette, the ice-breaker cigarette, and thousands of others. How do you get over that? How do you fill the void left by cigarettes? I'd never managed to go a whole day without smoking. In 8 years! 8 years of my life where I smoked every day And now it's been a week without a single cigarette, and believe me, everything's fine! Yes, I had some cravings in the first 2-3 days, a bit of a headache, a short temperyes, that happened. But nothing terrible. I feel spurred on by all the good that I'm doing, or all the bad that I'm no longer doing. I breathe deeply, I close my eyes and I try to picture the inside of my body. It will probably take it years to recover completely, but I already feel better. It's as if an 8 year argument between my body and me has finally finished. We're speaking to each other again. Actually, my body never stopped talking to me (pain in my lungs, pain in my chest, discolored skin and teeth, breath that smelt like an ashtray) but I didn't listen. Now I'm my body's friend again, and the best thing is that my body doesn't hold any kind of grudge. My boyfriend says that I've never looked so beautiful, and as for me, I've never felt better. So come on, it's easy! Do it for your own self-esteem!"

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I quit about 5 months ago and after many several attempts to stop smoking and this is the first time I have felt confident that I will not smoke again, because this is the first time I have realised that I don't want to smoke, I don't like to smoke, and that I really never did. Once I understood that there's a lot of misinformation about smoking I felt free from the trap. After that it was actually easy. The benefits of not smoking far out-weigh any desire to have a cigarette ever again.

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Twelve years. Twelve years my cigarette and I have been living together. I started smoking at the age of 14. I felt bad about myself as a young teenager, looking for reference points, wanting to defy the law.... in short, all sorts of more or less valid excuses to make me feel less guilty. The result is there. Twelve years of smoking. One cigarette a month.... "I stop when I want", one cigarette a week... "I stop when I want", one cigarette a day... "I stop when I want...but it will be harder...", then two, three, four, "I need more and more", one pack? Why not two? Then come the explosive associations: Coffee-bottle-bottle Alcohol-bottle Night club-bottle End of meal-bottle- bottle ....... And all these little habits that gradually become part of well- defined, well-oiled rituals. Why stop? You feel so good with your cigarette. You even have a favourite brand! your favourite brand without which nothing can happen. The ideal companion for all good evenings, for all hard times, for moments of stress and pleasure. In order not to miss it, it becomes imperative to buy the cartridge, ten packs at a time! Then (because it never ends) small problems insidiously arise. A little cough here, an allergy there, suddenly you stop doing sport, no breath, no legs, headaches, fatigue, a whole bunch of little things that are not important, often blamed on a little temporary fatigue, hay fever (a great classic in spring). In passing, we note one or two comments from family and friends: "go brush your teeth, your breath is foul", "you should stop before it's too late", "if you smoked less you would....". But why do we have to be bothered with our beloved cigarette? We're not hurting anyone? And we are perfectly aware of the risks! Yes....., perfectly......, except that the day it falls on you, you measure the true extent of the damage. The little coughs gradually turn into big coughs, then into bloody sputum, then comes the X-ray of the lungs and the prognosis, much more reliable than the lottery: "Sir, you have lung cancer, we have to operate urgently on a lobe" ....operation.... chemo....operation...chemo... "sir, we're sorry you're at the terminal stage, everyone goes down.... to the morgue"..... cries, tears, then nothing more This is my dramatic story. I am 26 years old, my best friend was 27. We started smoking our first cigarettes together. He died four days ago in front of me. It doesn't just happen to old people, it doesn't just happen to others. Think of Frank when you light up that next cigarette, especially you young people.

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I smoked 2 packs a day for 20 years. I will be forever grateful to the Psychologist who told me "Smoking is a learned behavior and anything learned can be unlearned". The reason I am so grateful is because I think that made the difference in my success after 2 failed attempts. I looked back at how did I learn how to do this? Because he was right. It was just like a child learning to walk. Initially there is a lot of effort and then it gets into the subconscious mind so you don't think about it anymore but if you attempt to stop without looking at how you started, you will always feel deprived, I believe. my quitting process was mostly accomplished in a month and a half but fully done by 3 months. I really unlearned the habit and learned how to be a non-smoker. I have been smoke-free since March 13, 1986 at the age of 38 years. Woo Hoo!

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